Comeback at 77

White flecked the great man's bushy eyebrows, and he carried a cane in his gnarled fist. But the voice still swelled with rhetoric and the mind still swept to the horizon. Last week, as majestic as a grand old battlewagon rejoining the fleet, Branch Rickey, 77, became president of the Continental League, the collection of eager men who are confident that they can create a third major league by 1961. Rumbled Rickey: "I am actuated by a sense of duty, a debt I owe baseball."

In truth, baseball owes a debt to Rickey. More than any other man, he created the organization behind the modern game. With the St. Louis Cardinals (1917-1942), he expanded the office of general manager to its present bounds so that he could run the whole operation, set up the first farm system, and won six pennants and four world championships. With the Brooklyn Dodgers (1942-1950) he broke the ban on Negro players by bringing up a hustling infielder named Jackie Robinson. In 1950 Rickey went to the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates, where his luck seemed to run out. Last year he had a heart attack. Since then, he had sat idly by as board chairman until last week, when he gladly took on the toughest job in baseball. (When Multimillionaire Bernard Baruch, a spry 89, heard that Rickey had taken the job at only $50,000 a year, he muttered, "Chickenfeed.")

To put the Continental League in business, Rickey will need all of his guile and all of his gall. Started by a genial Manhattan lawyer named Bill Shea, who wanted another major-league team in New York City, the Continental League already has five members,*can easily sign up five more. But the big problem is getting big-league players. Last week Rickey met with representatives of the majors in Manhattan for exploratory talks on this and other fundamental matters. Rickey's strongest weapon: the U.S. Congress, which is now considering legislation that would define baseball's status under the antitrust laws. Many a legislator on Capitol Hill would dearly love to have the majors monopolistically refuse to deal with the Continental League, give them ammunition for passage of a tough bill.

*New York, Houston, Denver, Toronto, Minneapolis-St. Paul.

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